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No Arctic-science event is scheduled for today.
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( American Meteorological Society, August 2020). State of the Climate in 2019. This is the 30th issuance of the annual assessment now known as State of the Climate, published in the Bulletin since 1996. As a supplement to the Bulletin, its foremost function is to document the status and trajectory of many components of the climate system. However, as a series, the report also documents the status and trajectory of our capacity and commitment to observe the climate system.
( Nature Climate Change, July 2020). Past Perspectives on the Present Era of Abrupt Arctic Climate Change. Abrupt climate change is a striking feature of many climate records, particularly the warming events in Greenland ice cores. These abrupt and high-amplitude events were tightly coupled to rapid sea-ice retreat in the North Atlantic and Nordic Seas, and observational evidence shows they had global repercussions. In the present-day Arctic, sea-ice loss is also key to ongoing warming. This Perspective uses observations and climate models to place contemporary Arctic change into the context of past abrupt Greenland warmings. We find that warming rates similar to or higher than modern trends have only occurred during past abrupt glacial episodes. We argue that the Arctic is currently experiencing an abrupt climate change event, and that climate models underestimate this ongoing warming. In recent decades, the Arctic has warmed at over twice the global rate. This Perspective places these trends into the context of abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger warming events in the palaeoclimate record, arguing that the contemporary Arctic is undergoing comparably abrupt climate change.
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Media
 Biologists Hope Dead Sea Lion Will Provide Insight Into Endangered Aleutian Population. A Steller sea lion in poor health was sighted at Morris Cove in Unalaska over the weekend, prompting biologists to observe the adult male until it died early in the week. "It's really unusual to have sea lions hauling out on the soft sanded beaches," said Melissa Good, a marine advisory agent with Alaska Sea Grant. "We often see them hauled out on the marker buoys or on some of the rocky points where they have rookeries or haul out areas. But we very rarely see them hauled out on a beach, especially here near town." A local spotted the Steller sea lion at Morris Cove. Alaska Public Radio
Trump Administration to Approve Arctic Wildlife Refuge for Oil and Gas Drilling. The Trump administration announced today (Aug. 17) that it plans to open up part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a 19 million acre (7.7 million hectares) refuge about the size of South Carolina, to oil and gas leasing - a move that paves the way for drilling in the region, according to news reports. ANWR has long been a battleground between environmentalists and industry. In 1960, the U.S. government began setting aside land for ANWR, "the only conservation system unit that protects, in an undisturbed condition, a complete spectrum of the Arctic ecosystems in North America," according to a 1987 report. Live Science
Warming Greenland Ice Sheet Passes Point of No Return. Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The finding, published today, Aug. 13, in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, means that Greenland's glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers. Science Daily
 The Danish Military Plans a Greenland Militia to Help Close its Arctic Capacity Gap. The Danish military has taken the first step toward establishing a reserve military force in Greenland that will assist regular units during non-combat operations in the Arctic. The opening on August 5 of a Nuuk branch of a Danish Ministry of Defense office that serves as a liaison between businesses and reserve forces comes as part of a 2016 proposal to set up an irregular Greenlandic force that is modeled on the Canadian Rangers, a militia unit that assists that country's regular forces in its sparsely populated Northern reaches. Arctic Today
Low Salmon Numbers Close Subsistence Fishing on the Yukon. The fishing has gone from bad to worse on the Yukon River. Fall chum numbers are so low that managers have closed subsistence fishing on the lower Yukon. Managers say that there are simply not enough chum salmon to meet the escapement goals for the river, or for the terms of the Yukon River Salmon Agreement with Canada. Jack Schultheis, the manager of KwikPak Fisheries, LLC, the Emmonak processor that usually sells Yukon chums commercially, has been coming to the community since the 1970s. Alaska Public Radio
 How Coronavirus Cancellations Could Change the Way Arctic Dialogue is Conducted. The Arctic Circle Assembly, the largest international gathering on the Arctic held in Reykjavik every fall, has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The news comes as Iceland sees an uptick in cases, Europe girds for a second wave, and cases in the United States continue to rise dramatically. Arctic Circle draws attendees from more than 60 countries, Ásdís Ólafsdóttir, director of the assembly, told ArcticToday. As cases began to rise in Iceland and the government reinstated limits on public gatherings, and as the virus spread elsewhere in the world, "it became clear that the Assembly could not take place," she said. Arctic Today
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Future Events
Whale Acoustics Webinar From the Gulf of Alaska, 2 pm EDT August 18, 2020 (Virtual). Learn how high school students use long-term acoustic recordings to monitor marine mammals and anthropogenic activities in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic in this webinar. Presented by students from the Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka, Alaska, this webinar will highlight the important contributions to marine mammal research through an internship and technology training program, called SeaTech. This webinar is a good opportunity for anyone interested in the Arctic, marine mammals, acoustics, or exploring collaborative approaches to science-based education and outreach. Migration In Harmony is a network of Arctic migration researchers funded by the National Science Foundation. Learn more and sign up.
Arctic Science Summit Week, March 20-26, 2021 (Lisbon, Portugal). The Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and the Local Organizing Committee will host the Arctic Science Summit Week 2021. The Conference is organized by FCT, Ciência Viva, AIR Center, the Portuguese Arctic Community and by IASC and partners. Framed by the overarching theme for the Science Conference "The Arctic: Regional Changes, Global Impacts," Lisbon invites International experts on the Arctic and Indigenous Peoples to discuss the "New Arctic" and also its impacts and interactions to and with the lower latitudes.
Save the Date: 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses, May 3-6, 2021 (Hanko, Finland). Organizers announce, that due to the coronavirus outbreak, the 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses has been postponed to 2021. This symposium will bring together molecular microbial ecologists specializing in different organism groups to share our latest results and discuss methodological problems, as well as future prospects in the field, including practical international collaborations. The environmental focus will be on cryospheric environments including sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost, but excellent research in other polar environments is also invited. The methods to be discussed will focus on 'omics' techniques, ranging from single cells to metagenomes, but research using additional methods is encouraged as well.
3rd Arctic Science Ministerial, May 8-9, 2021 (Toyko, Japan). The Japanese and Icelandic organizers of this ministerial continue to plan for an in-person ministerial, in Tokyo, but have moved the dates from November 21-22, 2020 to May 8-9, 2021 because of Covid-19. Since the last Arctic Science Ministerial in 2018, changes in the Arctic ecosystem and the resulting impacts locally and globally have been severely felt. Considering the need for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and repair measures, the relevance of an international Arctic Science Ministerial has never been greater. It is necessary to strengthen scientific cooperation and collaboration among both Arctic and non-Arctic States in order to develop our understanding of the rapid changes impacting the Arctic. The First Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM1) was hosted by the United States in 2016, and two years later, the Second Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM2) was co-hosted by Germany, Finland, and the European Commission. ASM3 will be co-hosted by Iceland and Japan.
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